Just had a look at the Printed in detail website, the number of supports on the dire wolves looks really awkward to cut away

3D printed wargame miniatures at the moment, certainly 10mm/1:144/1:150, seem, to me, to a bit of a 'curate's egg'.  I bought some 12mm/1:144 WW2 vehicles from Butler's Printed Models, which sells at prices that compare with Pendraken, Pithead, Minifigs et al but they were not very good to be honest.  The proportion was OK but they exhibited a peculiar ridge-like series of lines on all surfaces.  These were particularly pronounced on curved or angled surfaces such that the amount of filler and work to remedy them was hardly worth the effort. 

On the other hand, I also have some aircraft and vehicles from Shapeways 3D Printing Services which were very good.  Some had a rough textured finish which hardly notices when painted, others were much smoother.  They were all, however, very expensive in comparison to metal and resin models.

I have avoided 3D since, unless it is a source of an obscure vehicle I can't scratch build myself, because the quality seem to vary enormously and you really are buying a 'pig in a poke'.

I would like to know why there is this variety in quality?  Is it something to do with developing technology?  I am sure the 3D printing is a technology of the future but it seems a bit immature at the moment.

I am buying all my 10mm vehicles and a lot of 1/72 vehicles in 3d print at the moment. Any loss of detail is more than made up for by the light weight and availability of otherwise unavailable models, and the proportions are absolutely spot on, as long as the master 3d file is correct. Those than can will do them in 1/160 scale for me, which is great.

My 10mm alternative 1941 French army has FCM F1 fortress tanks, Renault R-40, SAu-40 and Lorraine 38L APCs alongside my Pendraken FCM-2c and Char D2. Am hoping to be able to get Lorraine 39L APC and Char B1ter soon. I have a company of Is-7 for my 1950s Soviets, just waiting on some FV215 to take them on with, heh.

Most of the sellers can't seem to do 1/160, one that can told me it's because he uses a 1mm nozzle as apposed to 2mm. He also is doing more in 3d printed resin rather than PLA, especially for the smaller models, which is a bit more expensive but retains the detail better. The sellers seem to be moving off ebay and onto Etsy, or have their own websites.

I do use Butler 3d print too, not perfect as John says, but the advantages outweigh the disadvantages for me.

For my 1/72 World of Tanks collection, it's great to be able to get models of prototypes, minor nations AFVs, and what-ifs for about £5-£12, when the resin equivalent (if available) costs £30-£50 with all the hassles of resin and etched brass. Although I prefer plastic kits, the reality is there is a huge range of models that will never see the light of day in kit form, just because you can sell 100x Maus tanks for every Romanian R1 tankette or whatever. The 3d printed tanks do have all the issues with taking off the support material  - it's the opposite of kit construction, almost destruction - you have to be quite forceful with the cutters and stanley knife, which is counter-intiuitive when you are used to building plastic kits. So you do have to look up photograph references, just in case you take off some obscure box or detail by accident.

None of these are modellers vehicles, they are wargames pieces, but I am happy to display them once painted. I have a French FCM F1 fortress tank in 1/72, and an even bigger K-Wagen, the nearest resin kit to these costs about £80!

Shapeways is a bit odd, as you can find a lot of models but at silly prices, I really don't get how it works.

You can get 3d printed model kits, I recently saw a Somua S-35 in 1/72 for £50 on Ebay, so there is an emerging market catering for the more detailed end of the market, but a Heller plastic kit or Deagostini diecast for a fiver will do me.

One area I don't see an immediate challenge to metal manufacturers from 3d printing is figures. 3D printing doesn't do round surfaces well, so I'll be getting my infantry and cavalry in 10mm for a while yet.

The new 10mm WW2 tanks from PSC are going to be 1/160 in their new scio-cast, which is another emerging technology to think about.

Next I'm looking for reasonably priced 1/144 aircraft, which may be another market corner to steal with some kind of 3d printing. Any 1/144 He-111F and Martin B10 bombers out there?

Mark

As a person that recently got into 3D printing, I'll give you my perspective from a hobby point of view.

First the good aspects:

3D resin printers have gotten very affordable ($200 or less ) and with the next generation Mono Screen printers, they now print twice as fast with twice the resolution (4k compared to 2k) and the screens last twice as long then the first generation SLA printers.

Does this mean I'm done buying figures from Pandraken? No! But I'll buy less then I did before. For instance I probably won't need to buy AFV for my WW2 projects becouse Thingiverse has lots of free models but I will still buy my infantry from Pendraken and others bits. Same with buildings/terrian, there seems to a fair amount of files to print, some free some paid.

One factor no one has mentioned yet and that is the fun factor. We all enjoy the hobby and 3D printing your own stuff is fun! Also you have flexibility to design and print your own files. For instance I uploaded a 40mm base I designed for my Artillery (the figures are from Pendraken). It was dead easy to design and printed out. Now I only needed a few bases so it was easy. I don't think I would print all my bases becouse I don't want to tie up my printer making bases, so I'll continue to buy my bases from Pendraken.

Now the bad:

Resin is smelly, toxic and messy which requires lots of added stuff (gloves, cleaners, paper towels etc.)! Don't believe people that say you can just set up a printer in your living room and you won't smell anything. I set mine up in the basement and after one print you could smell it upstairs. Also I got a headache instantly from using the Eco friendly resin which is supposed to be less toxic. So I had to build a vent box to put it in and vent it outside. Now I can print and work in the same room without any issues. So resin printing is far from plug and print.

My conclusion:

I love 3D, it's a terrific tool for my hobby needs. With mono screens now coming out its getting closer to the point of really effecting the hobby but I don't think it will until theres a true non-toxic resin available. Cleaning and curing has gotten a lot easier with 2 in 1 dedicated stations available for around $130 but you still have to deal with the used IPA/water but that isn't too bad.

Sometime in the future I think we'll see a 3D file service akin to Steam that will change the industry. Right now it's not that easy to find files you want for free or pay, it's a really hit or miss affair. But when the printers/Resin reach the point of mass use I'm confident a file service will follow. Not sure how that will effect companies that make and sell miniatures but I would think that the bigger companies will be OK but the smaller ones might not be around, but that's pure speculation from just a hobby guy.



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I think the future of wargaming is the spoon feed, everything in one place solution.

I've been watching some Bolt Action and Warhammer videos on YouTube, and the popularity of this type of systems is quite appealing if you don't want to do the research. Everything is handed to you on a plate, and you have no need, in fact there is a disincentive, to stray from the product.

Buy the figures, the rules, the paint guides, the paint, the scenery ... everything from one supplier. 
 

Quote from: Orcs on 28 November 2020, 10:42:09 PM
Just had a look at the Printed in detail website, the number of supports on the dire wolves looks really awkward to cut away

In the video the dude says that you need to put the mini in warm water first so that when you cut the supports you don't do damage to the sculpt.

The whole "supports" thing turns me off.

Quote from: Ray Rivers on 29 November 2020, 09:13:56 PM
In the video the dude says that you need to put the mini in warm water first so that when you cut the supports you don't do damage to the sculpt.

The whole "supports" thing turns me off.

Supports aren't bad at all when done right, usually all I have to do is peel them off with very little clipping and no hot water etc. If their are selling the models with supports to stay on during shipping then basically it's over done for shipping purposes. It's different when you print your own stuff.

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Quote from: fsn on 29 November 2020, 08:32:41 PM
I think the future of wargaming is the spoon feed, everything in one place solution.

I've been watching some Bolt Action and Warhammer videos on YouTube, and the popularity of this type of systems is quite appealing if you don't want to do the research. Everything is handed to you on a plate, and you have no need, in fact there is a disincentive, to stray from the product.

Buy the figures, the rules, the paint guides, the paint, the scenery ... everything from one supplier. 
 

I don't think that is a bad thing actually. Especially for new folks who may be interested in taking up the hobby.

When I first became interested in wargaming one of the guys from the store I wondered into invited me over to his house for the Saturday afternoon game. They explained the rules and stuff and then let me play with them. That was the spark that got me to dive in. Afterwards, I bought the rule book, the minis, the paint... and started adding my troops to those brought to the weekend game. We played the ACW, Napoleonics and Ancients. 40+ years later, I'm still at it.

Once you get that spark... it can quickly become a flame.

Quote from: Ray Rivers on 29 November 2020, 10:27:47 PM
I don't think that is a bad thing actually. Especially for new folks who may be interested in taking up the hobby.

When I first became interested in wargaming one of the guys from the store I wondered into invited me over to his house for the Saturday afternoon game. They explained the rules and stuff and then let me play with them. That was the spark that got me to dive in. Afterwards, I bought the rule book, the minis, the paint... and started adding my troops to those brought to the weekend game. We played the ACW, Napoleonics and Ancients. 40+ years later, I'm still at it.

Once you get that spark... it can quickly become a flame.

I 100% agree, companies need to take that approach with their games in order to hook people into the hobby. You need to offer the one stop shop othewise people get turned off by having figuring out everything they need to play. A lot of them will just go look for a board game to play instead.

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Quote from: Battleback on 29 November 2020, 08:08:17 PM

But I'll buy less then I did before. For instance I probably won't need to buy AFV for my WW2 projects

This brings t a few things to think about:-

1. If vehicles are more profitable than figures (easier to pack less faffing about etc), will the manufacturers even be able to keep going with a loss of this part of their sales?

2. Will this mean large price increases for figures ?

3. Will they bother to produce vehicles at all?

4. Will they even say WW2 / modern  is not really commercially viable , so we will stop producing ranges for that period and stick to the periods where the entire range will be
    bought from us?

You could then be left with any vehicle you wanted in 3d but no decent figures to field with them.

Quote from: Orcs on 29 November 2020, 11:44:07 PM
This brings t a few things to think about:-

1. If vehicles are more profitable than figures (easier to pack less faffing about etc), will the manufacturers even be able to keep going with a loss of this part of their sales?

2. Will this mean large price increases for figures ?

3. Will they bother to produce vehicles at all?

4. Will they even say WW2 / modern  is not really commercially viable , so we will stop producing ranges for that period and stick to the periods where the entire range will be
    bought from us?

You could then be left with any vehicle you wanted in 3d but no decent figures to field with them.

Those are all great questions and I can only guess what the future will bring. But I'm of the opinion that companies like Pendraken will start selling 3D files along with their physical figures, once there's a system in place to keep people from just giving the files away. Thats where a Steam like platform will be needed to sell and distribute 3D files.

Companies then can sell their files and bundle their games with all you need to play with just one purchase; miniatures and terrain etc along with a copy of the rules. So really no differnt from what a lot of companies are doing now but just digitally.

I was one of the people that held PC gaming close to my heart back in the day and thought there's no way I'm going to buy a digital copy of a game. I wanted the manual and the box to keep on my shelf... Well now I own hundreds of games on Steam and no one buys a hard copy of a PC game anymore. Times change, like it or not!

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When 3D printing gives a finished product with no ridges and no need for cleaning off supports, I may switch. I have some fantastically detailed resin printed 3D figures for Battletech yet I am disappointed, they remain unpainted as there is far too much clean up required.

Ian

sent from my fingers using typing...

Quote from: Sandinista on 30 November 2020, 12:29:39 AMWhen 3D printing gives a finished product with no ridges and no need for cleaning off supports, I may switch. I have some fantastically detailed resin printed 3D figures for Battletech yet I am disappointed, they remain unpainted as there is far too much clean up required.

Ian

sent from my fingers using typing...

Supports should be removed after cleaning but before curing, that's the best time to remove them becouse the supports are soft. But I suppose you can't keep the price affordable and remove the supports. I don't know if selling printed figures will have much of a future, personally.

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I am reminded of Clarke's Law: If a distinguished but elderly scientist says something is possible, he is probably right. If he says something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong.

(The great Clarke lived a bit before the age in which all decent people felt uncomfortable or indignant about the implications of masculine pronouns in such cases.)

Quote from: John Cook on 29 November 2020, 03:12:04 AM
The proportion was OK but they exhibited a peculiar ridge-like series of lines on all surfaces.  These were particularly pronounced on curved or angled surfaces such that the amount of filler and work to remedy them was hardly worth the effort. 

I would like to know why there is this variety in quality?  Is it something to do with developing technology?  I am sure the 3D printing is a technology of the future but it seems a bit immature at the moment.

That's purely the production method, the extrusion machines (like a printer head) push out plastic and build the model line by line vertically, giving those striation lines you've got there.  The resin/LCD screen printers don't have those issues and produce a much cleaner print.  Time varies massively though, so the extrusion folks are putting out quicker models but at a lower quality.

Quote from: Battleback on 29 November 2020, 08:08:17 PM
Sometime in the future I think we'll see a 3D file service akin to Steam that will change the industry. Right now it's not that easy to find files you want for free or pay, it's a really hit or miss affair. But when the printers/Resin reach the point of mass use I'm confident a file service will follow.

That's an interesting point but as you say it would depend on their being a proper service for it, as most companies won't have the ability to sell in that manner and protect themselves against piracy.  Could be a business opportunity there for someone!  Although most of the UK companies using digital masters for vehicles seem to be using the same handful of digital sculptors, so it would be interesting to see who gets the rights to sell them!

Quote from: Orcs on 29 November 2020, 11:44:07 PM
1. If vehicles are more profitable than figures (easier to pack less faffing about etc), will the manufacturers even be able to keep going with a loss of this part of their sales?

Vehicles are one of the few higher-profit areas in 10mm at least, so I can't see 3D printing being able to compete on price for a very long time (obviously with print-to-sell, rather than print at home).  We can knock out 60 tanks per hour quite easily but the 3D printer would struggle to do more than a dozen in 2-3 hours.  Things will speed up but there's always a limit on that where the hardware can't physically cope with moving any quicker without knocking out the calibration.

Quote from: sultanbev on 29 November 2020, 09:58:59 AM
The new 10mm WW2 tanks from PSC are going to be 1/160 in their new scio-cast, which is another emerging technology to think about.

Are they definitely going with 1/160th and if so, won't that clash with their 1:144th Cold War stuff?  All of the WWII tanks that remained in service through to Korea, Yom Kippur, Indo-China will end up being the wrong scale for the Cold War period, or are they going to duplicate them all in two scales?  

I don't understand some of these scaling decisions recently if I'm honest.  Victrix did the same with their WWII stuff, where it was '10mm' and folks were told they "...will fit with other 10mm ranges" when they first previewed them, but then switched to calling it '12mm/1:144th' when they released them.  But then the comparison pics I've seen of them show that they're almost identical to ours, at 1:150th?!  And I'm fairly sure that a Victrix 28mm Napoleonic figure is 28mm to eye-level, but their WWII infantry are 12mm overall height...?  So is it just a marketing decision to call them something different and try to stop gamers from buying from anyone else?  

I've not seen any comparisons of the PSC vehicles against ours, so I'm not sure where they sit.  The infantry look to be taller than ours so could be 12mm to eye level maybe.  If they're going with 1:160th for the WWII ranges then I presume that their WWII infantry will be a touch smaller than ours?

Leon
I think 3d printing has a way to go before it competes with the Mainstream manufacture of metal vehicles and figures.

I think the point still stands on things like this though, is that they won't be making a proper profit at £10 per pack unless they've got half a dozen machines all running at the same time.  And that's still nearly twice the price of other 10mm Fantasy ranges already on the market.  There's an interesting clash in the Warmaster community though, where many players are happy to buy recast figures because they refuse to pay the going rate for original WM products, but they'll now pay more than usual for a non-GW proxy because it's shiny and 3D printed?

I wouldn't pay 10 pounds for a pack of figures  when you could get three and with some manufacturers 4 bases of figures for 5-6 pounds !
also with my Warmaster army id rather use decent proxies than recasts. Personally I'm not really impressed with the 3d printing stuff, I cannot see the point of sitting for hours sanding down print lines. (I hate removing flash).
Regards
Sean

Regarding the Victrix "12mm" stuff. I picked up a single Pz IV as a test model. It's a very nice casting, easy to assemble. The material seems more like standard model kit plastic than a resin.

Size wise the hull is almost identical in size to a Pithead PzIV, but the turret of the Victrix one is bigger, I've struggled to find a photo from the right angle to compare, but I think the Victrix one is more correct. I only have an old Pendraken Pz IV and its is much smaller than either.

Interesting how the variations in how far back the turret goes over the engine deck vents go:

http://www.dererstezug.com/images/Tanks/panzer2.gif

Quote from: sultanbev on 30 November 2020, 02:53:40 PM
Interesting how the variations in how far back the turret goes over the engine deck vents go:

http://www.dererstezug.com/images/Tanks/panzer2.gif

I from looking at some drawings In the books I have being picky :-

The bustle on the Pithead model is too short.
The turret of the old Pendraken one is a bit narrow
The turret of the Victrix one is in the correct place at the rear, but should be nearer the hatches on the hull front.

However ,these are wargames models. they are all in good proportion, and  I doubt you would notice any of this on the table top, and not unless they were place together as below.

Indeed, I'd always thought the Pithead one looked fine, it was only when seeing the Victrix one I looked at the proportions / positioning again.